This celebration of the country lines in their heyday captures the total experience of railway life - the sights, the sounds, the smells and the very essence of the steam age. Ten authoritative chapters cover particular aspects of country railways, from the stations to the engines, passengers to freight, and are interspersed with a wealth of anecdotes and quotations, cameo studies and illustrations. There are features from around the British Isles and many different periods in history, but with an emphasis on the immediate post-war years that many readers will remember, and which the authors conclude were the railways' greatest days.